To get started, you’ll first create a data pattern that specifies the information types and fields that you want the firewall to filter. Then, you attach that pattern to a data filtering profile, which specifies how you want to enforce the content that the firewall filters. Add the data filtering profile to a security policy rule to start filtering traffic matching the rule.

DLP profiles specify how you want to enforce the sensitive content that you’re filtering. Predefined data filtering profiles have data patterns that include industry-standard data identifiers, keywords, and built-in logic in the form of machine learning, regular expressions, and checksums for legal and financial data patterns.

DLP profiles are active only when they are attached to a security policy rule; they scan traffic that matches the rule. If a user uploads a file that matches a data pattern, an alert is triggered or the file is blocked (depending on the action you define in the DLP profile).